Weird Tales, Vol. 1, No. 2

A figure recoils in terror—arms flung wide, white hair suggesting an older man—as twin red eyes blaze from a dark, shapeless mass, its beam of sickly light reaching across the cover like a supernatural accusation. The hand-lettered headline promises "The Whispering Thing" by Laurie McClintock and Culpeper Chunn: Thrills!! Mystery!! Terror!! This is only the second issue of what would become the most influential horror fiction magazine in American publishing. Printed on cheap wood-pulp stock and sold for twenty-five cents, Weird Tales gave writers like H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and Robert E. Howard their first serious market—and gave the comic book industry the visual grammar of supernatural dread it would spend the next century refining. Cover artist unconfirmed.